


Still Alive

by BlackjackKent



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Death, Eden Prime, F/M, Final Battle, Gen, London, Loss, Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, Regret, Sacrifice, Survivor Guilt, Virmire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:40:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackjackKent/pseuds/BlackjackKent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan's ongoing regrets at being the one left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-off fic inspired by the interesting commentary seen on this Tumblr post: http://blackjackkent.tumblr.com/post/49551625185/ltleflrt-thelostgirl21-theladyjess
> 
> Credit to thelostgirl21 for the inspiration! 
> 
> This fic was tossed off rather quickly since the idea struck me; may come back and edit it further later. Constructive criticism as always appreciated!

Kaidan has never run so fast, so furiously, in all his life. 

Everything is heat and noise and light around him, every movement is flat fiery instinct and Shepard’s moving form ahead of him, silhouetted in the white-hot glow of the Citadel beam. His breath aches in his throat. Tears of exhaustion squeeze in the corners of his eyes and sit there in the hellish humidity. And he runs.

_This is it. This is it. This is what it has all come down to, why everything fell out the way it did..._

A gout of smoke goes up between him and Garrus and he runs faster, feeling the scorching explosion even through his armor. Another explosion to the left side, and he shouts with raw lungs as Shepard dives aside to avoid it. And then the third explosion--

One of the Alliance tanks ( _is it a Mako? and god, wouldn’t that be ironic?_ ) comes blasting up out of the ground like a rocket, flying over Shepard’s head. There’s no time to think; he and Garrus leap aside, and they’re clear...they’re clear...time to get up and run again...and then the Mako explodes.

The blast washes over him, picks him up clear off the ground and shakes him like a rag doll in a thunderstorm, then slams him into the dirt hard enough to tear the air from his lungs. He feels something in his chest snap audibly and then the pain washes over him, aching pain and bleeding pain and burning pain and for a moment he thinks that his hair is on fire and rolls to put it out, but that just makes the pain worse. And then Garrus is standing over him, looking grimmer than Kaidan’s ever seen him.

 _No. I can’t die. Not now. Every other time it would have made sense but I am here for a_ reason...

* * *

_The first time it had been humid too. Hot jungle humidity of Eden Prime, not the dank foggy mess of London. He was following a woman he had known only a few days, jogging along in light armor in search of an unknown enemy..._

_They stop at the curving crest of a hill, drop to take a knee and survey the situation. Someone needs to take point; Kaidan’s already moving but Shepard puts a hand up, signals the kid to take it instead. What’s his name? Jenkins. Corporal, good kid, too much energy._

_Jenkins takes three steps out and then the firing starts. At first Kaidan can’t even see where it comes from. Then the bastards zoom in, two little flying things like no turret he’s ever seen, delivering death at about five rounds a second and fast as all hell. Jenkins goes down with a cry, out of nowhere, unexpected, and Kaidan is left staring, unbelieving._

_Alive._

* * *

 

He struggles to his hands and knees, gulping air to try to get a grip on the pain. There’s wetness on his face, and it smears off red on his fingers.

He raises his head and the blinding light of the beam is suddenly blocked by a figure almost flying over the charred remains of the tank. Shepard’s jaw is set and she hits the ground already moving towards him. “I--” he starts to say, and the words are lost in a groan as she gets a shoulder under his arm and lifts him.

Sound is dim around him, fading in and out with the waves of pain, but he locks onto her voice like a beacon and holds it desperately. “ _You’re going to be OK...”_ she murmurs, half to herself, half to him. “ _You’re going to be OK...”_

 _Once we get to the beam, it doesn’t matter if I’m OK..._ he wants to tell her. _If this is the only reason I’ve lived so long...we have to make it count._ But he can’t get the words out, just limps awkwardly as she half-carries him, with surprising gentleness -- it has always surprised him how gentle she can be, when those same fingers have broken necks while he looked on -- into the shadow of the Mako debris.

* * *

 

_The second time it had been warm and clear. Virmire would have been a nice place to go, if it hadn’t been swarming with geth. He’d seen all the signs; there was no way his team could fight so many. It was time to pay back Jenkins’ sacrifice..._

_“I’m activating the bomb.” Kaidan slams his hands down on the controls as enemy fire whistles around him._

_“Alenko, what are you doing?!” Shepard’s objections ring in his ears and tear at his heart. He knows he is hurting her, and she deserves so much better, but he has had longer in the world than he deserves. It is his turn to do what’s called for, and not flinch from it._

_“I’m just making sure this bomb goes off, no matter what,” he answers grimly, sliding deeper into cover and popping off a shot at a geth who has not done so also. “It’s done, Commander. Go get Williams and get the hell out of here!” At least she will be safe, he hopes. It is all he can hope._

_Ashley’s response is immediate and characteristic, and sounds tinny and harsh through the commline. “Screw that! We can handle ourselves! Go back and get Alenko!”_

_A geth shot comes too close for comfort and he stumbles back, splashing down into the water._ Damn it, Commander...get out of here. You don’t owe me anything I don’t owe you a thousand times in return. And we’re running out of time...

_“Alenko, radio Joker and tell him to meet us at the bomb site.” He knows that tone from Shepard. It brooks no disapproval, no argument. And it makes him feel ill with dread. She’s just signed Ashley’s death warrant in his place._

_“Yes, Commander. I...” he tries to say, but Ash cuts him off._

_“You know it’s the right choice, LT.”_

_He doesn’t know anything of the sort. He doesn’t know why he should live and she should die. He doesn’t know why he’s getting these kinds of breaks, and he doesn’t know what in hell makes him deserve them._

_But he is still alive._

* * *

 

“Normandy! I need an evac right now!”

Shepard’s voice sounds fuzzy, as if he’s hearing her over comms or at a great distance even though she is sitting right beside him. He fumbles clumsily for her hand, suddenly irrationally frightened of slipping away from her.

He is not afraid to die. But he is afraid that after everything that has happened, his death is meant to mean nothing.

She whispers something to him and he can’t hear her over the roaring around them. So he answers what he hopes she said. “Yes...I’m ready to keep moving.” She looks away; she didn’t hear him -- or she is ignoring him. They both know it’s a lie anyway.

The roaring changes, becomes more familiar as the Normandy descends, glinting in the glow of the beam. Such a friendly sight, anywhere but here, but now Kaidan flinches from it, looks towards Shepard. She gets her arm under his again, lifts him with a painful jerk upwards, and he feels a flash of joy that they will keep going. And then it vanishes into despair as the reality of the situation seeps through the pain.

The evac is for him.

“Take him!” Shepard shouts over the rattle of covering fire from the Normandy crew. There is a brief painful shuffling as his weight is shoved forward. Shepard’s arms abandon him and Garrus’s close around him instead. The turian’s hot breath, ragged with exhaustion, rasps in his ear.

“Shepard!” Kaidan shouts, head turning wildly looking for another glimpse of her. She is staring up at him, eyes wide and sad, but determined. She is so beautiful in her purposeful desperation that it makes his heart turn over, and he is filled with sudden rage that he is not going with her. Weakly he tries to struggle from Garrus’s grip. 

“You’ve got to get out of here,” she snaps, taking a step back from him.

“Yeah-- that’s not gonna happen,” he grinds out, willing her to understand how he needs this last fight.

He can see he’s making it worse for her; her jaw clenches and her eyes squeeze shut in a way that he’s learned is the same as a scream of grief in any other woman. “Don’t argue with me, Kaidan!”

He lets out a breath like a sob, sagging against the implacable grip of the turian’s claws. _Why can’t you understand? Why am I always the one who makes it out, to sit and wait and try to forget?_ He knows there’s no point, but he can’t help the plea that slips from his lips like a prayer. 

“Don’t leave me behind...”

* * *

 

_The third time had been so cold. Environmental controls had been the first thing to go in the attack on the Normandy, and they’d all been struggling into their suits as the freezing vacuum of space filtered in around them. He’d felt the chill through the metal even as the fires raged..._

_“I’m not doing this just so they can find our frozen corpses!” Shepard sounds taut as a wire, and Kaidan can tell she’s terrified under the command veneer. She snaps a fire extinguisher out of its socket and hurls it to him. “Get everyone onto the escape shuttles.”_

_He catches the extinguisher and opens up on the nearest blaze. “Joker’s still in the cockpit. He won’t abandon ship!” he cries over the explosions, then turns his head to look at her, wishing she could see the seriousness, the loyalty in his expression. “I’m not leaving either!”_

_Her hand grabs him around the shoulder and yanks him back so he’s facing her. “Get to the damn shuttles!” she snaps. “I’ll haul Joker’s crippled ass out of here.”_

_“Commander--” He won’t leave her behind; she’s saved him too many times for him not to face the danger with her. But she rounds on him with panicked fury, raises an arm and points, not to be ignored._

_“Get the_ hell _out of here!”_

 _And he goes, at a run -- not to save himself but to follow orders,_ her _orders -- and the grief of this decision doesn’t strike him until later, when he learns that she was never recovered from the wreckage, never found in an escape pod. She is dead, and died saving him, and he will never repay any of the debt he owes her._

_And he is still alive._

* * *

 

She steps forward, raises a hand to his cheek. It’s a gesture they’ve repeated so many times before, and even though her hand is cold with the metallic sheen of her gloves, it is almost more than he can take.

“No matter what happens,” she says softly, “know that I love you...always.”

“I love you too,” he whispers brokenly, raising his hand to cover hers. “Be careful...”

And then she is gone, pulling her hand from his though he tries desperately to follow. And Garrus is pulling him backwards and the Normandy hatch is closing and then everything falls into silence and blackness and he collapses with a cry.

* * *

 

_The fourth time...there had been nothing at all. The mech had taken him, lifted him, slammed him into the metal of the shuttle and he’d felt everything go to pieces inside him at once..._

_Take the shot, Shepard._

_He’s sliding down the hull of the shuttle to the floor of the Martian landing pad. There’s blood inside his suit and inside his chest and inside his head and his eyes are red with it. But he has distracted the mech, and Shepard will take the shot, and they will get out with the information “Dr. Eva” has stored inside her._

_It is enough. Shepard will live, and despite his questions about her these days, that fact alone is enough to make it worthwhile._

_Is this what it was all for? he wonders. Is this the death that pays back all the other deaths? The one Ash and Jenkins and Shepard all died to give me? Is this why I survived? He closes his eyes on that question and surrenders to silence gratefully..._

_...and wakes up in Huerta Memorial Hospital. Alive._

* * *

 

“You’re back with us, Major, eh?” says a woman’s voice.

Kaidan groans and rolls his head over. He’s on his back on one of the beds in the Normandy medbay. Dr. Chakwas is watching him from her desk by the window, and Garrus is sitting, grim and silent, at his bedside. Both of them look serious as hell. Everything is quiet except for low, purposeful voices here and there outside in the main personnel bay, and the sound of running feet. He hurts in every inch of his body, though the pain is less than it was.

“Shepard--” Kaidan mumbles, then lifts his head carefully, waiting for consciousness to settle more firmly into him. “Wha’ happened?”

“She went into the beam about fifteen minutes ago,” Garrus says quietly. “We haven’t had any reports yet.”

Kaidan tries to take a deep breath, and the pain makes him groan. “Damn it. _Damn_ it...” He lets his head fall back, stares at the ceiling. Garrus watches him in silence that seems to stretch for hours. “I wanted to go with her,” Kaidan says finally, his tone frustrated and angry.

“We all did,” Garrus answers. “But we all knew in the end it would be her, really, didn’t we?”

“ _I_ didn’t,” Kaidan says forcefully, ignoring the twinge in his chest. “I kept waiting for the chance to...to...” He pauses fumbling for the words. “To repay everything.”

Garrus’s mandibles twitch thoughtfully. “To sacrifice yourself, you mean?”

Yes. Garrus understands. “So many people have died in my place,” Kaidan murmurs, shaking his head carefully. “It’s got to be my turn sooner or later...”

“If only the universe were that fair,” Garrus quips. “But if you’re looking for a purpose for it all...” He shrugs. “Maybe you were meant to ensure she made it this far.”

“But why me and not Ash? Why me and not Jenkins? Why me and not--”

“Anyone? Because it wasn’t your turn in the barrel,” Garrus says firmly. “And that’s all there is to it.”

The ship’s intercom squeals with a shout from Joker. “She did it! She did it! Holy hell, she did it, that thing’s lighting up like a Christmas tree. Hold onto your seats, folks!”

“Damn it,” mutters Garrus. “I’ll be back-- going to see what’s up.”

He turns on his heels and leaves at a run, leaving Kaidan staring at the ceiling with a sense of emptiness in his chest so great that he feels can’t bear it.

 _These are terrible days,_ he once told Shepard, after his recovery in the Citadel. _But I’ve been lucky._

So lucky, so many times. He doesn’t understand it. He hates it. 

But he is still alive.


End file.
